Клер Донелли - The Big Kitty

She gave an impatient headshake. “That doesn’t work out. Even if it was a two- or three-man operation, Gordie, the guy in the explorer, and the guy in the getaway car, how would they know I was going in that direction? So they had to be following me.”

“I’d like to worry a little less about the theoretical implications of the attack and concentrate more on cold, hard facts—especially while they’re still fresh in your mind,” Will said. “What can you tell me about the driver from the Ford?”

Sunny shrugged. “I only saw him for a few seconds, and not from a good angle. I was on my hands and knees at the time, climbing up from the sidewalk.”

She frowned, shutting her eyes, trying to call up a picture of the guy she’d seen stumbling from the wrecked SUV. “He had a bloody nose, that’s what really leaps out. The blood was trickling down between his fingers.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “That bloody hand was covering everything from his nose to his chin. I just saw bright red—didn’t even notice the color of his eyes.”

After a second she said, “He had a lot of hair. Long. Maybe it had been pulled back in a ponytail and got loose, because it was all over the place.”

“Long hair,” Will repeated. “His hand couldn’t have blocked all of his face. Try to remember. Was he clean shaven, or did he—” He broke off with a frown. “That could be leading.”

“What could be leading?” Sunny asked. Then the light went on over her head. “You think it might be that Ron Shays guy?”

Again, Sunny tried to visualize the man making his way out of the blue Explorer, struggling to bring the edge of his masking hand into focus. Could there have been a beard under there? Or was this what Will was afraid of? Had he planted the idea in her head?

“Sorry,” she said unhappily. “I just can’t say.”

“It would have been nice.” Will straightened up the papers in his hands. “Because if you hadn’t realized it yet, I just lost my prime suspect in Ada’s murder.”

“There’s still Veronica Yarborough and the Towles,” Sunny suggested. “Neither of them have alibis for all of Saturday morning. And do we know where anyone was on Friday night?”

Will nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t rating the neighbors as hot suspects. Sunny wasn’t so sure. For all her airs and graces, Veronica Yarborough didn’t strike her as a good person to cross. As for Chuck and Leah … Sunny remembered how she’d felt when she found Shadow crying in the back of the pickup. If I found the person who hurt him —

Protecting a pet suddenly seemed like a much stronger motive now.

*

When Sheriff Nesbitarrived, he wasn’t happy to find Will with Sunny.

This time, though, he can’t shove what happened under the rug—there are too many witnesses, she thought. And he’s got to see there’s no way I could have singlehandedly arranged an attempted hit-and-run against myself.

But the sheriff’s mood certainly didn’t improve when Will started telling him some of the things they’d discovered about Gordie Spruance.

Nesbit smoothed down his silver mustache while his face turned dull red. Before Will got a full sentence out, the sheriff barked, “The two of you have been conducting your own little investigation, and now you’ve decided to let me in on what you’ve found out? How considerate of you!”

“It didn’t start as an investigation,” Sunny responded. “I just talked to the guy as part of the article about his mom’s death—”

“A death that you insinuated might be murder,” the sheriff interrupted. “And you weren’t happy until you spread your theory all over town, were you? Look where it’s gotten you.”

“A death where the dead woman’s son and heir was a tweaker,” Will stepped in. “You don’t have to take my word on that. I’m sure an autopsy will prove it.”

“Maybe you’re right, Will,” Nesbit said grudgingly. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but you know there are weak-willed people out there who’ll use drugs no matter how clean we keep things around here.”

“Except Gordie was hanging around with a dealer who specialized in making places dirty,” Sunny burst out. “Tell him, Will.”

Will started explaining about Ron Shays and his business model of opening meth labs in virgin areas, but Nesbit cut him short. “You went to Portsmouth PD and didn’t share this information with me?”

“What would you have done if I had?” Will challenged.

“It’s irrelevant,” the sheriff blustered. “Doesn’t apply here.”

“What doesn’t apply?” Will wanted to know. “We have a guy who likes to open meth labs in quiet places, and we have the tweaker son of a lottery winner who could put up the money.”

“Except nobody seems to know where this famous missing ticket ended up,” Nesbit objected, “or even if it exists. To tell you the truth, I wish to God I’d never heard about it!”

You and me both, Sunny thought. It may have gotten Ada Spruance and her son both killed. And I might be next.

A knock on the interrogation room door interrupted them. The door opened, and one of Nesbit’s deputies came in with Ken Howell.

“Sheriff—,” the nervous deputy began.

“I don’t have a comment to make right now,” Nesbit barked. He turned furious eyes on Howell. “Especially not for your miserable rag.”

“My ‘miserable rag,’ as you put it, is the least of your worries,” the Crier editor told him. “The phone’s been ringing off the hook in my office. Reporters from the Portsmouth paper, all the TV news types, even stations from Boston, they all want to pick up on the double tragedy connected to this lottery ticket.”

He scowled. “Hell, I would, too. Just my luck this happens the day after the latest issue came out.” Then he grinned at the sheriff, having kept the best for last. “It’s a slow news day, Frank. You’re gonna have yourself a media circus coming to town—and all the clowns will want to talk with the reporter who actually interviewed Gordie Spruance and witnessed his death.”

“Oh, God,” Sunny blurted out.

“Oh, damn, ” Frank Nesbit muttered.

*

Sunny quickly calledher dad and filled him in. This was something she did not want him discovering on the TV news. Then, all too soon, Sunny found herself standing beside the sheriff in the local press room, a utilitarian space with cream-colored walls and a low dais where Nesbit positioned himself behind a simple lectern, facing an array of microphones and cameras. It wasn’t just the regular media contingent that she saw on TV. She also spotted a lot of people she’d encountered while beating the bushes for a journalism job in the area—would-be newspaper stringers and unemployed reporters who called themselves freelancers.

I think anybody with a press card within a hundred miles has turned up, she thought. Oh, Lord, I hope I don’t look like a deer in the headlights.

Nesbit stepped up and gave a carefully edited summary of the facts in the case. “A sport utility vehicle climbed the sidewalk in downtown Kittery Harbor, narrowly missing one pedestrian and causing the death of another. We cannot speculate at this time as to how or why this happened. The driver of the SUV fled the scene. Our mechanics are examining the vehicle to determine whether there was any sort of mechanical malfunction.”

Period.

He handled the storm of questions that followed like the political professional he was. Yes, it appeared the car had been stolen several days ago in Portsmouth. No, his department had no idea as to the identity of the driver yet. Yes, the deceased was the son of the supposed lottery winner, who herself had died less than a week ago. No, the lottery ticket had not yet been found.